Officials are probing how a 51-year-old highway bridge came to collapse in the Italian port city of Genoa yesterday, killing at least 26 people and injuring 16 others as it sent dozens of vehicles tumbling into a heap of concrete and twisted steel.

President-elect Donald Trump tapped arch-conservative US Senator Jeff Sessions to be attorney general and hawkish congressman Mike Pompeo, a strident opponent of the Iran nuclear deal, as his CIA director, Trump's transition team announced Friday.

The incoming commander in chief also appointed retired lieutenant general Michael Flynn, a top military advisor for Trump and one of his earliest campaign surrogates, as his national security advisor.

All three have accepted their appointments, the Trump team's statement said.

"I enthusiastically embrace President-elect Trump's vision for 'one America,' and his commitment to equal justice under law. I look forward to fulfilling my duties with an unwavering dedication to fairness and impartiality," said Sessions, 69, a 20-year veteran of Congress.

"I look forward to fulfilling my duties with an unwavering dedication to fairness and impartiality," added the 69-year-old, who was also one of Trump's earliest backers.

Trump described him in the statement as a "world-class legal mind" who was "greatly admired by legal scholars and virtually everyone who knows him".

The appointments represent the president-elect's first steps to appoint a cabinet after a transition effort that so far has been marred by infighting and reshuffles on the team getting ready for the January 20 inauguration.

Related Articles

For director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Trump tapped Pompeo: a congressman who became well known in the controversy over a deadly militant attack against the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya in 2012.

"He will be a brilliant and unrelenting leader for our intelligence community to ensure the safety of Americans and our allies," Trump was quoted as saying in the statement.

The 52-year-old co-authored a report slamming then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton's handling of the attack, in which the US ambassador and three other Americans died.

And as national security adviser, Trump turned to the 57-year-old Flynn, who is set to play a key role in shaping policy for a president with no experience in government or foreign policy.

"I am pleased that Lieutenant General Michael Flynn will be by my side as we work to defeat radical Islamic terrorism, navigate geopolitical challenges and keep Americans safe at home and abroad," Trump said.

Trump praised Flynn as "one of the country's foremost experts on military and intelligence matters and he will be an invaluable asset to me and my administration".

Flynn's appointment does not require Senate approval, but the other two do.

The retired three-star general, a veteran of America's recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has courted controversy with extreme statements that critics say border on Islamophobia.

Meanwhile, he has taken a more flexible line on Russia and China, countries the outgoing administration of Barack Obama regards as the country's principal strategic opponents.

Flynn's paid appearance at a dinner in Russia last year sitting next to Russian President Vladimir Putin has raised eyebrows, as have his accommodating statements toward Moscow that suggest, along with Trump's, a readiness to accept Russia's seizure of Crimea and its support for embattled Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

"We beat Hitler because of our relationship with the Russians, so anybody that looks on it as anything but a relationship that's required for mutual supporting interests, including (IS), ... that's really where I'm at with Russia," he told the Washington Post in August.

"We have a problem with radical Islamism and I actually think that we could work together with them against this enemy. They have a worse problem than we do."

Son of a Rhode Island banker, Flynn had a professional army career mainly in intelligence units. In the 2000s he served in Iraq and then Afghanistan, where he became director of intelligence for coalition forces.

In 2012 he was named by Obama to lead the 16,500-strong Defense Intelligence Agency, but he was forced out in less than two years amid a turbulent restructuring effort and clashes with his superiors.

Since then he has repeatedly criticised the Obama government as inadequately focused on the Islamist threat, publishing a book this year entitled: "The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies".

'Malignant policies'

In it he argues that Muslim countries must be forced to recognize and stamp out radical Islamic beliefs, which he says are "metastasizing" around the world.

"We're in a global war, facing an enemy alliance that runs from Pyongyang, North Korea, to Havana, Cuba, and Caracas, Venezuela," he wrote in the New York Post in July.

"Along the way, the alliance picks up radical Muslim countries and organizations such as Iran, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Islamic State."

Like Trump, Flynn has also criticized US allies in NATO for not putting enough of their own effort and funding into the crucial western defence treaty.

Critics in the national security community see his views as one-dimensional and warn they could upset well-established relationships that benefit the United States.

They also question his willingness to take money from Russian government-backed groups, and his support for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's harsh crackdown on dissent.

In a statement Friday Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said he was "deeply concerned" over Flynn's view on Russia.

"The incoming president would be better served by someone with a healthy scepticism about Russian intentions, and willing to be guided by the unequivocal intelligence we have of Russian's malignant policies towards the US and our allies," he said.